Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms; biometrics and physical border patrol technologies are advancements that will be critical to future United States special operations efforts, according to a key Pentagon official.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) Michael Sheehan said recently “all intelligence platforms,” not just ISR, are critical technologies to future special operations efforts.
“Whether it be aerial production, ground signals intelligence (SIGINT) production, actual technologies that help us manage and fuse intelligence,” Sheehan told a National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) SO/LIC symposium audience in Washington. “That whole cluster of technologies…That aspect of counterterrorism is enormously important.”
Sheehan said biometric technologies enable U.S. and allied special operations forces to put pressure on terrorist networks.
“If we can continue to put pressure on a network and make it more difficult for them to move and more difficult for them to communicate, it diminishes their strategic capability,” Sheehan said. “(It) diminishes their ability to coordinate large attacks and pick up multiple sustained attacks.”
Sheehan also said technologies that help the physical patrol of borders will also be key to future special operations forces.
The United States can no longer rely on precision air strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to help defeat enemy networks and will instead rely on “security force assistance.”
“In the long term, we recognize that we can’t solely rely on precision strikes to defeat enemy networks and foster the kind of stability we need in those regions for long-term solutions to fight Al-Qaida networks,” Sheehan said.